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Friday, 11 May 2012

This summer, the MSCI review of the UAE markets — for their possible inclusion in emerging market indexes — could be used to make some money. While there is no guarantee that the UAE will get emerging market status, the volatility caused by speculation could be utilised by short-term traders.
"Last year we witnessed an almost 6 per cent rise in the week before the MSCI decision in June. This year, we expect about the same," Sa'ad Al Chalabi, technical analyst of Al Ramz Securities, says.
The possible upgrade of the UAE from frontier to emerging will have a positive effect on market liquidity. Tareq Qaqish, deputy head of asset management at Al Mal Capital, believes speculators will also see this news to create short-term opportunities.

"So do you think Turkey is being Islamized?"
Although my speech was more or less a detailed account of Turkey's domestic politics, I was expecting this classical and rather shallow question from the audience. Last week at the Bruno Kreisky Forum in Vienna, our topic of the day was the rising authoritarianism in Turkey. Yet again, Islamization is still inevitably the most juicy topic for some European audiences. Not only because it is easier to ask about and almost impossible to answer, but also because their expectations for Eastern European and Middle Eastern democracies are so low that they prefer to stick to the good old horrors of Islamization when talking about Turkey. My answer was "Maybe and maybe not. But that is not the real problem." I still think that the real problem is not the rising conservatism or Islamization of society, but the "Dubaization" of the country’s landscape, and therefore the shopping malls.

Gas-rich Qatar is ploughing more of its commodity wealth back into the sector with the purchase of a major stake in Royal Dutch Shell while also reportedly eyeing a chunk of Italian oil major ENI.
A Shell spokeswoman confirmed the purchase while declining to detail its size but the Middle East Economic Survey (MEES) reported earlier that Qatar's sovereign wealth fund (QIA) was looking at a 3-5 percent stake.
If Qatar did buy 5 percent, it would be just ahead of Blackrock, which is currently Shell's biggest investor with 4.97 percent, according to Reuters data.

Royal Dutch Shell said it welcomed Qatar as a "major" investor following a report saying that the Gulf state's sovereign wealth fund was planning to buy a 3-5 percent stake. "We are delighted to welcome the Qatar Investment Authority as a long term and major shareholder in Shell, and particularly given our excellent strategic relationship with the Qatari state," a spokeswoman said in a statement.